After the Husbands E-Book

Gina Cheyne

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: SeeMs Detective Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 327

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

What do you do when you've buried four husbands and not yet found a fifth

Lady Bumstead takes a cruise down the Mekong in Vietnam with a hired female companion, Annie de Tonkin. Annie is not just a kind old lady but a brilliant listener. But on the last day of the cruise she is killed.

Lady Bumstead, unable to see any reason why Annie should be murdered is convinced the killer was after her. She hires the SeeMs Detective agency to protect her and find the killer. At the same time she does some sleuthing of her own using her high powered hearing aid.

As the SeeMs detectives investigate they discover Annie had a rich past and connections with almost everyone on the boat. There seem to be plenty of reasons to kill her, but who did the deed.

Willl Lady Bumstead and the SeeMs Detectives find the killer before he/she strikes again? Will Lady Bumstead find another husband? Or will she become the next victim.

Written in the first person by Lady Bumstead, this novel will appeal to readers of Agatha Christie and A Man Called Ovo. Or anyone interested in whodunnits.

Leseprobe

AFTER THE HUSBANDS

SEEMS DETECTIVE SERIES

BOOK 5

GINA CHEYNE

First published in 2024 by Fly Fizzi Ltd

Pyers Croft

Compton, Chichester

West Sussex PO18 9EX

www.flyfizzi.co.uk

Copyright © 2024 by Gina Cheyne

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

www.ginacheyne.com

Cover design by Kari Brownlie

ISBN 978-1-915138-15-6 After the Husbands ebook

978-1-915138-16-3 After the Husbands paperback

978-1-915138-17-0 After the Husbands hardback

978-1-915138-18-7 After the Husbands audiobook

Created with Vellum

To stepmothers, stepchildren, stepfathers and

‘their sisters and their cousins and their aunts’

Thank you Gilbert and Sullivan

“Wicked stepmothers only exist in the minds of bitter ex-wives.” Anon

“Après moi le deluge.” attributed to Louis XV King of France 1710 – 1774

“…be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.” Shakespeare. Spoken by Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

FOREWORD

With a couple of exceptions, the chapter headings are Vietnamese proverbs or other related quotes. Some of the meanings are obvious, but others are not, indeed some are counter intuitive and are explained here.

Travel a day’s journey – to learn a bagful of wisdom.

Exploring the community will help you find your identity and culture.

Near the ink it’s dark, near the light it’s bright.

You are known by the company you keep.

One sick horse causes the whole stable to starve.

The loss of one player will cause the team to fail.

Let the head be the peg that holds the rice.

Sacrifice yourself to help others.

Nobody can hand me the water.

I am the best at what I do.

If I knew I would die immediately.

I don’t know.

You only know you are hungry after eating

You don’t know something until you have experienced it yourself.

A rat fell into the rice

You are very lucky!

Now you’ll get the salad

You’re in trouble.

Empty Barrels Make Loud Noises

People who speak loudest often know least.

CONTENTS

Prologue: Singapore 1967

1. Heathrow, February 2023

2. The older you get the better you get

3. ‘What made me fall in love with Vietnam?’

4. Travel a day’s journey

5. Only when you eat well

6. Near ink it’s dark, near light it’s Bright

7. Japan drives on the left, China on the right

8. One sick horse

9. Let the head be the peg to hold the rice

10. Nobody can hand me the water

11. If I knew, I would die immediately

12. You only know you are hungry

13. What Love is to Speech

14. So angry my body is purple

15. Love is like a bowl of stale rice

16. Love can be bought

17. If love is due to fate

18. If love is light

19. Behind a cheating man

20. A woman is like the road

21. There is one thing money cannot buy

22. Money cannot be created or destroyed

23. Behind the inscrutable smile

24. Life is

25. A rat fell into the rice

26. Finding a worm

27. I’m Soy into you

28. Hit in the back

29. Empty Barrels

30. Now you’ll get the salad

31. Throw your hands in the air

32. Nine men, ten minds

33. The father ate salty food

34. When the owner is away

35. Your idea is a banana plant root

36. You have the blood of a cockroach

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Gina Cheyne

Next in the series

PROLOGUE: SINGAPORE 1967

Slithering down the fire escape as fast as possible she stopped at the balcony outside her room; their room. The French windows were open, the curtains blowing in and out. Odd. She had closed both window and curtains when she left.

She stopped, teetering on the metal platform and, childishly unable to restrain her curiosity, peeked in. An unknown man was turning over the bed, ripping the sheets, pulling out the stuffing from the mattress. Looking for something? But what? she thought. And where is my husband?

The man pulled her Revelation suitcase from under the bed and his parang flashed in the lamp light as he brought it down noiselessly, slashing through the hard leather as though it was paper.

She gave an involuntary gasp and stumbled back. Her heel caught in the wrought iron grid, her shoes making a clacking noise.

Inside the room, the man’s head shot up. For a moment she saw his face. Young. Her own age perhaps. European. Then he turned, speaking to someone in the other room.

‘What was that?’ His accent was English.

‘I didn’t hear anything.’ The second voice was too faint to analyse, but they were still speaking in English, not Cantonese.

She didn’t wait for any more but slid down the rest of the fire escape and on to the gravel beneath.

Stepping away from the hotel she put out her hands instinctively; for a moment she had slipped into total darkness before her night-vision returned. Here, in the kampong, it was completely different from outside the Raffles Hotel where the glare of lights had blinded her. The night was black but not silent: the noise of the cicadas behind her competed with the endless insistence of the jammed traffic ahead. She ran across the gravel and dashed into the choking fumes of the crawling cars.

Suddenly backlit by the slow-moving headlights, the men saw her. She heard a cry behind her, low though it was. Almost a whisper.

‘There she is!’

She heard the drumming of their feet as they started to descend the fire escape in the semi-darkness.

She weaved in and out of the virtually stationary traffic, oblivious to the hoots and curses of the drivers. On the opposite side of the road were smaller streets, leading who knows where. She didn’t care as long as it was away from the men.

Entering an alley, she came in sight of the night stalls. She slowed her pace, skipping, half-running, not wanting to arouse attention, moving quickly past the sellers who carried everything from satays to tee shirts. She had to weave a little to avoid knocking into the drinkers who were leaning back enjoying their beers, to prevent tripping over the rubbish they threw onto the street behind them, but the smell of rotting vegetables made her pause even before she saw the dead dog. She swallowed and forced her legs over it. She was not planning to escape the parang only to die of some banal infection here amongst the rubbish, the hanging washing, and the satay sticks.

Past the stalls, she began running again. This lane was too small for drinkers, although the houses probably still held the same numbers of occupants crowded into three storeys. Washing straddled across the narrow streets and balanced on bamboo poles from windows. Shirts. Vests. Trousers. Pyjamas. Cheongsams. Kebayas. Even sheets.

Despite her speedy passage she wondered how the householders knew how far to put out their washing poles before it tumbled into the streets. She giggled. How was it you could find laughter in the deepest pain?

Somewhere there were dogs: howling, barking, sniffing. Were they in the narrow houses or were they following her? With the men. Who were they? Would they have dogs? No! They had followed her from the hotel, down the fire escape and dogs could surely not do that.

The edges of the alley crowded together, almost touching now, too narrow for anything more than a bicycle. In India they had horses to work in the meaner streets, but did they use horses here? Donkeys? Too narrow for elephants. But was it too hot for horses? Her thoughts teemed through her brain in time with the pitter-patter of her sore feet. She was still wearing her evening clothes, her elegant heels. Blisters began bursting out as she ran but it was better than exposing bare feet to the mounds of rubbish which might have broken glass or syringes amongst its ribbons of decay. Anything and everything went on here in the backstreets. A very different side of town to the one she was used to seeing. Her Singapore had theatres, dances, racecourses, glorious fashions. This was the opposite side of a strangely fetid coin.

She heard a clang behind her, and the thought of what might happen forced her forward like a hurricane pushing on her back. She had not fought out of a life of poverty to die in someone else’s deprivation.

And then, just as her instinct told her she was approaching safer streets ahead, a blockage emerged from the darkness. The lane ended. Just like that. A house? A wall? Whatever it was, she was trapped.

She turned. Her pursuers had entered the top of the alley – two men lit up by the streetlights behind. One man still held the parang, which glittered threateningly. She sensed a wave of testosterone as though the men were excited by the chase. She was shrouded by the darkness. Slowly she edged along the darkest wall feeling its roughness. Could she rush them? Slip past them like an eel? It happened in films. But she was too slight. Too vulnerable. They’d catch her. Drag her somewhere and then…

She was worth more dead than alive.

Something hard cut into her back. A door handle. She forced back the nervous laugh that rose into her throat and pushed the door. She fell into a black space, stumbling down some stone steps. As she hauled herself back onto her feet, a hand shot out and grabbed her arm. Thin fingers like a claw gripped her flesh, hurting the bone. An unrecognisably accented voice said, ‘Quick, here.’

The door clicked shut. Would the men hear it? Would they follow her? Was she any safer here? Her choices were limited.

Two claws grabbed her hands in the dark and put them on someone’s waist. Uncertainly she clasped the body, feeling the protruding hip bones. A woman. Malnourished. Chinese or Malay, possibly Eurasian. Too narrow for European. She mirrored the small steps through the total darkness, pairing the girl’s slender thighs, being led to who knows where. Conjoined twins. A curiously close dance where she could no longer see, only feel.

Were the men behind her? They would see the door. Would they come inside?

The journey through the blackness seemed endless. The smell almost overpowering. What was this place? A mixture of putrefaction. Of sweat. Of bodies. Of incense. Of opium. There were people here. Lying down. Smoking. Who were they? Occasionally she stepped on something that felt alive. Her foot rolled on an unresisting… what… arm? Leg? She gagged. Tripped. Held tighter to her guide. Leg to leg. Hip to hip. Keep going. Where there is life there is hope. Family motto. Not her family, but she took over the motto when she married the man.

And then the guide stopped. So quickly they almost fell. Her arms slipped around the thin body in a spooning embrace.

The girl opened a wooden door and pushed her into the light. She turned quickly enough to see a lined face. Eurasian. Looked old. But was it really? The voice sounded old too, but hips and claws had been young, adolescent.

‘Go,’ said the girl brusquely, again in accented English. ‘See it?’

As she turned and looked down the street the door slammed behind her. She saw a flashing sign. Amber Mansions. She was in Orchard Road. Thank Heaven. She put her hand in her skirt pocket and felt the sharp outline. Her passport.

She sighed and accelerated into a sprint she had never achieved at school. Here she would be safe, at least for a while.

CHAPTER1

HEATHROW, FEBRUARY 2023

When you’ve had as many husbands as me, travelling with a female companion is an interesting novelty. I wasn’t sure what to expect: anything from a tall efficient linguist to a female Jeeves hovering quietly in the background. What I did not expect was to be kept waiting.

Terminal 4 at Heathrow is a nice clean place and relatively new, but not where I was hoping to spend a spring afternoon. Once again, I got out my phone to see if she had messaged me to say she was delayed. Nothing.

I tapped on my hearing App. My step-granddaughter Jade – one of the few relations still talking to me – set up my phone with this miraculous hearing aid and showed me its many ‘super-powers’.

Now, I put it on distant listening and allowed the receptor to sweep the hall: I might even hear Miss Annie de Tonkin before I saw her. However, inanimate objects are unpredictable and it focused on two men discussing a woman.

‘I could kill her,’ said a voice that sounded like the whining of a drill. I couldn’t see him but it was the kind of sound I would probably recognise again. ‘That witch stole all my money.’

The second voice was softer and deeper. ‘Your father’s money.’

‘Well, OK, he made it, but the kids of the other three wives got plenty, then along comes that bitch and me mum and hers are struck out.’

‘To be fair,’ said the softer voice, ‘your mother did tell your father he was a lousy lay, and she took a lover. It doesn’t help a man’s ego…’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, so strike out me mum, but why me?’

Huh, I thought, could easily be one of my many stepsons. I had so many I’d forgotten their names. When you marry old men as often as me, you have a lot of ex-wives and families to wish you dead. One lot even took me to court, although I warned them they’d lose: they might be fools but their father was not.

Just as I was basking in amusing memories, a funny little munchkin hurried across the airport towards me and dropped at my feet.

Literally! Tripping over her shoe laces.

She scrambled up with more agility than I would expect of a seventy-something-year-old and dusted herself down, completely ignoring the shock she had given to my nerves.

‘Hello,’ she said, looking up and giving a half wave with her hand, ‘you Lady Bumstead?’

‘I am and it is pronouned Lady Boom-ste-ad,’ I corrected her spontaneously, although I had long ago given up expecting the right pronunciation and just hoped I wouldn’t be called Lady Bum, as so often was the case.

‘Yeah,’ was her reply. She wasn’t even looking at me.

I adjusted my hearing aid to local sound; she had one of those little snippy voices and didn’t enunciate properly. I knew I should have had a proper interview before I employed her, instead of letting the agent do it.

Physically, she was even more disappointing standing up. A prune of a woman with strangely polka-dot skin and a rather unshapely body, she reminded me of a maggot standing on its tail. Even her face was maggot-like with a large gap between the two front teeth. Still, as my fourth husband liked to say, usually when commenting on the staff I’d chosen, ‘we can’t all be blessed with good looks’. Let’s hope she made up for her bodily misfortunes with a suitably helpful temperament.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Annie de Tonkin, I’m told you are a linguist. That will be useful. Do you speak Vietnamese?’

‘No. French, Latin and Greek.’

I sighed. I wondered if she thought Vietnam was still a French colony.

‘I don’t think they still use it,’ I said sharply.

She stared at me. Then started laughing. ‘Oh, dear me,’ she said, almost as though talking to herself, ‘aren’t you the clever one. No, they, if you mean the French, left Vietnam in 1954, with the Geneva Accord. But I suppose we might find one or two old men who speak the lingo, if we try hard. Shall we board?’

I saw she was holding out her hand for a ticket and for a moment I was tempted to give it to someone else, almost anybody really. Looking back on that moment I really wish I had, but sadly even the widow of four husbands does not have that level of foresight. I gave her a ticket and we went to check-in.

We were flying from Heathrow to Ha Noi. All my husbands would have pronounced it Hanoi, but times change, as do we.

I had only just settled down in my seat with my complimentary glass of champagne (I always have a window seat) when I noticed Annie was climbing into the seat across the aisle.

‘Annie?’ I asked in a stentorian voice. ‘I bought you a seat in economy.’

She gave me her maggoty smile. ‘Yes, but when I explained to the purser I was travelling with an elderly companion who was in first class, she kindly upgraded me. Don’t worry, at no cost to you.’

She settled down in her seat, drinking her champagne with clear delight, while I nearly choked on mine.

During our eleven-hour flight the nostalgia for my fourth husband filled my heart: he would sleep through the whole flight. Annie, in contrast, would jump up every few hours to do exercises, get some more water and even, occasionally, to check I was OK: usually just as I was dropping off to sleep. ‘Anything I can get for you?’ she would purr. I’m sure she timed her visits so the purser would be passing.

When we arrived at Ha Noi we were met by a charming young man whose name was Viet, but who kindly said we could call him Victor if we preferred. Without asking my opinion, the tiresome Annie said Viet was fine and exacerbated my annoyance by adding ‘Cam An’, which apparently means thank you, in a pretentious voice. I do hope she isn’t going to keep practising her few words of Vietnamese all trip long. It is bad enough to be accompanied by a linguist who only speaks archaic languages but one who pretends she can speak the local dialect would be awful.

We proceeded to our hotel in the centre of Ha Noi, where we were met with a welcome drink of peach juice. Annie, of course, starting off with ‘Xin Alo’, which is apparently hello and then going on into some perfectly rubbishy phrases which she said were polite. Thank Heaven I got her a room in a different wing from mine.

The receptionist led me to my room, and I left Annie with the baggage. I should have known better already. With my bags came Annie, who had apparently wormed her way into the room next to mine; we even had connecting doors ‘in case I felt queasy in the night’. I felt queasy right now.

As we arrived so late, the hotel had kindly laid on a special dinner. We entered the flower-filled dining room, and I saw to my surprise we were not the only ones having a late meal. By the window was a women dressed in a silk suit that had clearly been tailor-made: only not for her. I recognise a charity shop buy when I see one.

With her was a boy. He looked too young to be her son; she was my age although I, of course, look at least twenty years younger. Toy boy perhaps. Foolish woman. I knew better than that. Only one of my husbands had been less than ten years older than me, and he was the mistake.

Our food arrived and Annie started to show off again, talking to the staff (who all spoke beautiful English as would one expect in a top hotel) about spices and the like while they yawned discreetly behind their hands. I noticed the woman on the other table kept glancing my way. Occasionally, she said things to her companion who either shrugged or sneered. If he was her toy boy she was not rich enough to keep his attention.

As the other table was eating very little and we had a fine spread, they were soon finished. They got up to leave and made a detour to pass our table.

‘Enjoy your dinner, Lady Boomstead,’ said the woman, her face full of vindictive joy.

I was about to depress her pretensions with a finely timed remark when up jumped Annie.

‘Oh hello, are you friends? I’m Annie, the hired help.’ She giggled.

God preserve me!

‘Chirpy,’ said the woman, smiling at Annie in a lordly manner, ‘and my son Tree.’

Hmm. If that is her son then I’m a walrus.

Annie was gushing on about how lovely it was to meet her and such like when I stepped in.

‘Annie, your food is getting cold and Mrs Chirpy will want to get to her bed. Goodbye.’

Luckily the boy at least took the hint, and was out the door before you could say ‘unwelcome’, followed more slowly by his mother.

CHAPTER2

THE OLDER YOU GET THE BETTER YOU GET

UNLESS YOU ARE A BANANA

As travelling East always wears me out, I had decided to have an easy morning, but you-know-who was, of course, up with the lark and exploring every part of town. She dropped back just as I was starting a late lunch to suggest a water puppet show. Not being six years old, I rejected the idea.

‘I went to one of those many years ago,’ I said in a bored voice, and, with a sudden shock, I realised it was true. Nearly sixty years ago, in Singapore with my second husband. On 16th February 1967, one of three days forever imprinted on my memory.

My second husband was not one of those to put a bent thruppence in a parking meter and stick a note on his car windscreen – ‘Meter Broken’ – a felony of which my last two husbands were guilty, but he did not believe in paying unless it was profitable – or, occasionally, inevitable. He’d decided to go to the puppet show on a whim.

‘The theatre will be delighted,’ he told me, kissing his fingers, ‘to have our presence in their funny little theatre watching their archaic art forms. I ask you, my child, does the Queen pay to go to the Royal Variety Performance? Well then, point made.’

I drowned in his beautiful grey eyes, nodding. I would have followed him into a fire had he asked me. I signed blank cheques unquestioningly. How foolish is a young woman in love.

The show was in the elegant Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall in Empress Place.

Dressed to kill, as usual, we walked in through the stained glass decorated entrance as though we owned the place. The attendant stopped us, asking politely if we had a ticket and Phillip turned his sad grey eyes towards her. ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ he asked, his manner somewhere between amused and annoyed; willing to forgive, but not for long. And, to my amazement, the woman fell back and let us pass. We went straight to the bar in the dress circle and ordered champagne.

Phillip saw an elegant American couple seated on a table too large for them, and looking around, clearly bored of each other. He glided over, bowed gently and offered them a glass. Waving the bottle alluringly, he said in his cut-glass English accent, ‘Good evening, may I offer you a glass of champagne with my wife and me? I can see you are American and we would love to welcome you to our delightful country.’

The woman turned to him, her eyes lighting up with desire. ‘Y’all locals?’

He smiled and bowed his head.

‘Indeed,’ he said with his most seductive smile. ‘My wife and I almost invented the place. We would adore to show you the highlights of our country. It is so rare to meet Americans here and, correct me if I’m wrong, I think you are from the south… my favourite part of the United States.’

The woman turned to her husband. ‘Hear that, sugar, we’s now git ourselves ah gorgeous guide and his lover-ly wife.’

Her husband nodded his large head and proceeded to ogle me without saying anything.

The wife explained that they had hired a box but, because none of their group wanted to see the puppet show, they were alone. Phillip was politely happy to be persuaded to fill the seats. Tomorrow, he promised them, he would show them the finest delights of Singapore.

Sadly, he forgot to tell them tomorrow never comes.

The next day, Viet had planned a feast of delights for us. We went first to the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum. Despite the long queues, we got to see the body lying in state in record time: they certainly didn’t get us all through to see the Queen of England’s body so quickly. Annie, as you would expect, was busy informing the guide about everything she knew, and he, as a sensible employee, smiled and politely wondered at her, apparently, colossal knowledge.

‘Thank heavens for the internet,’ I said, smiling kindly, ‘or we would all be such dumb fools, wouldn’t we, Annie?’

She had the grace to look a little sheepish. Ha.

Next was the Museum of Ethnology, which of course gave Annie a field day. You’d think she’d spent years with each of the tribes personally. The poor guide started on his spiel about the fifty-four tribes in Vietnam with Annie nodding cheerfully, but when he began to speak about the Meo who worked with the USA in Laos she put out her hand and stopped him in a peremptory voice.

‘Ha! I think you mean the Hmong, a term meaning “mankind” and the name the tribe gave itself. The word Meo comes from the Chinese word for barbarian. It was used by the French and taken over by the USA, not realising it was an insult and now used by historians who cannot be bothered to get their facts right!’

The guide understandably looked deflated and glanced at me for support, which I was about to give when some nosey white man suddenly interfered, saying in a posh English accent: ‘Of course, she’s absolutely right, in spite of the term sounding like a cat crying.’ Here he gave a little titter to underline his own wit. ‘The French preferred the name Meo which they found easier to pronounce than the word Hmong. We all know how terrible the French are with “th”s so you can imagine their problem with Hm’. He laughed much more loudly this time, and the guide looked as though he might burst into tears. I didn’t blame him. I felt close to tears myself, but ones of boredom, while the thin old man continued nodding and blinking at us as though he’d just written a whole new page of history.

I sighed and went to look at the section on elephants. All these clever dicks showing off and using information they got from Wikipedia. I wanted my lunch.

Back in the hotel I went to complain about my room. There wasn’t actually much wrong with it, but I like to keep the staff on their toes. I can always find something to complain about, whether it’s the wrong type of fruit in the bowl, too many flowers or too few. One has to be creative when one is having a good rant.

I was standing at the reception listening to the hotel manager grovelling about this and that, and if they had known such a distinguished person was going to be staying here, when I heard that same whining drill voice behind me I had heard in the airport. At eighty, one forgets a lot, but not that dreadful voice.

I whipped round (well, an eighty-year-old version – a sort of slow quickstep).

There were three men behind me and they were all finishing phone calls. One was that dreadful historian from the Ethnology Museum; what bad luck that he was in the same hotel. The second was a thickset individual I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night, wearing mustard coloured cords. Honestly! Men! My third husband loved yellow cords; I think he imagined it shouted upper class. The third was the boy travelling with Chirpy.

Which one had had that voice? Which one could be planning to kill someone? Possibly me.

Could any of them be one of my step-relations? I did hope not.

CHAPTER3

‘WHAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH VIETNAM?’

‘… THAT THE COLOURS ARE SO INTENSE, EVEN THE RAIN.’ GRAHAM GREENE

The next day we left the hotel early to take a bus to Tuan Chau, from where we would get a boat and sail around Ha Long Bay, a beautiful tourist area three hours from Ha Noi.

At least, the trip to Tuan Chau would have been three hours if we hadn’t had to visit silk manufacturers, pearl collectors, weavers, and various other useful emporiums on the way. In each of these places Annie kept me busy, suggesting I buy this or that. When I pointed out I had plenty of things already and mostly made by very expensive designers, she sulked and talked about improving the local economy. Local economy indeed! This lot probably all belonged to some Chinese Mandarin.

When we finally arrived at Tuan Chau, five or so hours later, the boat wasn’t ready: some rubbish about the tide.

Why had we needed to get up so early? I asked, but my cry fell on ears not so much deaf as uninterested: no one listens to an elderly woman unless she’s waving dollars. Annie, on the other hand, was hugely understanding, busy telling me about tide timetables this time of year, and the moon and so forth, none of which was what I expected from my companion, whose sole job was to help me function happily.

Worse still, though, the awful man from the Ethnology Museum turned up on our boat. He laughed happily upon seeing us and said we must be on the same ‘tourist trail’. As though I ever did anything as ghastly as follow someone else’s trail. My package was entirely tailor-made: or so the company told me. I will be looking into that when I get home.

When we finally got on board we had our lunch; late, owing to the tides and who knows what. On our table (I having cleverly avoided the historian) was some celebrity influencer from Harlem – the place in the USA not Holland – who seemed to have Annie all of a flutter. Said she’d seen him on TikTok, although what someone of her age is doing on TikTok I cannot imagine. Must make the teenagers feel as though they were visiting their grandmother.

As we sailed past the elegant islands of tors that make up this part of the coast something suddenly struck me – not the endless rubbish, that was striking the boat everywhere – the fact there were no birds there. No sea birds screeching behind the boat, crying out for titbits, no raptors overhead in the high tors looking for prey, no frigate birds sitting on the radio aerials.

Annie said the lack of birds was due to Agent Orange; whoever he is. I think she’s been watching too many cartoons. I told her that Superman didn’t actually exist, and she stared at me in horror. Silly woman wouldn’t recognise humour if it hit her in the face.

Our guide said, sighing, ‘It was due to the famine. My father said when he was a child there were many tigers, leopards, wild elephants, much deer in the forests but during the famine the peasants didn’t have enough to eat and they raided the forest for wild animals, which would be outside The Party’s Quotas, and so could be eaten without punishment.’

‘Yes,’ said Annie sighing, ‘the 1980s were bad in Britain too, but for different reasons…’

And they went off into a discussion about which country had the worst political systems. Honestly. I thought we were going to see wildlife and birds on this trip, not talk about children’s programmes and politics.

The following evening we flew on to Saigon. Apparently some people take the train but, having read that was an eleven-hour trip with chickens, ducks and what-have-you on the seats, I rejected that. Of course, I was no longer surprised to find Annie beside me in first class. That woman has no shame.

The next morning, we went by taxi to the Iron Triangle in Cu Chi. Marvellous, I thought. Coochi Coo sounded like some cosy place with high-class spas where you could watch animals while having a relaxing massage.

Turns out it was where the Viet Cong hid in tunnels during the French and American Wars – our guide called them the French and American Occupations. Honestly. The USA came all this way to save them from communism and somehow became the oppressors. Annie, of course, hated the Americans and again started going on about that Agent Orange chap. I suppose I’ll have to dig out my phone and search Wikipedia to find out who he is, if only so I can join in the conversation.

When we arrived, Annie continued to make a spectacle of herself. Almost at the entrance there was a grass-covered hole leading to a tunnel where tourists could hide from the enemy – probably me in Annie’s case. The entrance was minute and you needed strong arms to lower yourself into the hole – plenty of people were watching but few were willing to subject themselves to such ridicule. Annie, naturally, was up for it and happily lowered herself into the hole, even giving me her phone and asking me to take a video – no doubt that will be on TikTok tonight – as she disappeared under the soil. Our guide, who really should have been agreeing with me that she was too old for such games, appeared rather admiring of her spirit, and her strong arms. Ha! Oh for such youthful health! – I don’t think.

After she came up, smiling at her own ability, he assured her there would be other opportunities to go underground some distance and really experience what the Viet Cong felt like when they were escaping their attackers. Annie grew rather quiet and when I pointed out that she had grass stains on her trousers she snapped at me.

‘It hardly matters, does it? Anyway, I brought some Vanish in my suitcase.’

I stared at her. I couldn’t help feeling that if I was a small boy my mouth would have dropped open. Who on earth travels with Vanish?

‘Sorry,’ she said, although I doubt she meant it. She smiled at the guide who was hopping from one foot to the other, waiting for an answer to his suggestion. ‘Thank you. I’d like that. The tunnels would be very interesting. I hear the soil is particularly suitable for tunnelling.’

I raised an eyebrow. Far from sounding like she would like it, her voice had a sort of death knell in it and although she did go into the tunnel with a guide she came out quite quickly, saying it was a good experience. Ha! So is a massage, I told her.

Once in Saigon proper – which Annie snappily said was called Ho Chi Minh city – we visited the War Remnants Museum: as though we hadn’t had enough war already. Here I found out rather more about Agent Orange, which apparently isn’t a cartoon person at all but instead a rather nasty bunch of chemicals the American forces had dropped onto the Viet Cong hideouts: no wonder the birds took flight (I told the guide that and he thought it was very funny).

Annie started crying when she read about all the effects of Agent Orange – birth defects, hideous malformations, and deaths not only of the plants and trees, but the humans and animals too. Hers were not normal tears but great embarrassing whoops of pain so she could hardly breathe. The guide had to take her away for a coffee to calm her down. It was a horrible scene. I must say I hadn’t realised the war had lasted seventeen years and cost the USA 676 billion dollars. I wonder if they thought it was worth it. Judging by the results: no birds and by now a rather normal capitalist economy under the guise of communism, I would imagine not.

We also saw the Independence Palace. One look at that told you what governments of all colours do with their population’s tax money. There was a note saying the French had originally spent 12.5 million francs in 1873, but although the note added that the rebuild cost by the military junta in 1966 made it the most expensive building in the Southern Hemisphere at the time, it slyly failed to add the exact amount – certainly billions of dollars. No wonder there was a famine in the 1980s and so many dead. There can’t have been any money left in those coffers at all.

However, any kind of financial discussion with Annie was wasting my time so I kept my knowledge to myself.

CHAPTER4

TRAVEL A DAY’S JOURNEY

TO LEARN A BAGFUL OF WISDOM

From Saigon – I’m not the only person calling it that incidentally, although of course Annie frowns when I do so. I could imagine her as a school matron, although with her habit of crying at unexpected moments I expect the younger children would have played-up.

Anyway, as I was saying, from Saigon we took another of those trips with interminable shopping stops to the middle of the Mekong Delta – a town called Cai Lay – to pick up our boat. I was rather surprised to see the place where the boat was moored was the most delightful spa and health resort. Why weren’t we spending some days there? I could have enjoyed several massages and excellent food. I am definitely having a word with the travel organisers after this trip is over.

At least the boat had a good number of staff, thirty in all we were told. However, the boat took seventy guests. Seventy! Some of the rooms must be portholes. I was about to complain about that – I did not come here to join rush-hour traffic – when I discovered there would only be twelve travellers in total. I couldn’t decide if this was some sort of game the organisation was playing with the guests – look how special you are – or a true deficit of tourists, which, given that it wasn’t so long since the Chinese were released from COVID restrictions, and we all know that the Chinese are the major tourists in the world, might be true.